


Just an Asset

by soniclipstick (veriscence)



Series: tumblr [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clint Feels, Clint Needs a Hug, Clint in denial, Coffee, Denial of Feelings, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Insecure Clint, Jealous Clint, M/M, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-23
Packaged: 2018-01-16 18:22:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1357369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veriscence/pseuds/soniclipstick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson is probably just being polite; it’s obvious that he prefers Thor. That’s fine. Clint is just an asset, after all. And Coulson has real friends now, he doesn’t need to waste his time on Clint. </p><p>For anonymous tumblr prompt: Phil and Thor are good friends, Clint doesn't understand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just an Asset

**Author's Note:**

> **Trigger Warnings:** Clint hurts himself purposefully while training with the bow, and also bites his lips to pieces. So I know this may seem rather mild, but I still consider it self-harm, so do keep your self-care first above all things. 
> 
> What I had originally wanted to be a 500 words fluff piece turned into angsty fluff, anyways, I've never worked so hard on a fic before, I really hope you like it!
> 
> Thank you to the lovely Max74 for more or less holding my hand through the entire fic, and to my awesome beta ereshai for fixing all my grammar issues and to both for helping me come up with an ending I was actually satisfied with.

Of all the strange things that Clint expects from moving into Avengers Tower, the one thing that comes as a shock is the budding friendship between his handler and the god of thunder. Don’t get him wrong, Coulson gets along well with everyone on the team; he’s generally an agreeable kind of guy. With Tony, there is less talking and more forcing Tony to go to bed once in a blue moon and ingest something other than smoothies. Clint has caught Coulson and Bruce on more than one occasion sharing an early morning breakfast. That is to say, he watched quietly fromthe vents and did not mope, not at all. Natasha and Coulson have always gotten along famously, and being roommates brought on no change to their relationship. As for Steve, Coulson’s hero worship for Captain America has evolved into respect for Steve Rogers, and a friendship based mostly on museum visits is born. Clint wishes he’s smart enough to go to museums, but he’s just a dumb carnie who quit school in the 6th grade.

Thor and Coulson spend many an evening together hanging out at the bar or at home watching sitcoms since Thor seems to genuinely enjoy _How I Met Your Mother_. Apparently, it reminds him of the stories his father used to tell him as a child. Thor and Coulson have inside jokes that make no sense to Clint. Thor and Coulson go out to movies or ice skating with Jane and Darcy and Clint doesn’t know why that makes his stomach flip flop, but it does. Clint tells himself that he doesn’t care, that Coulson is just his handler. But every once in a while, Thor will spar with Coulson in the training room while Clint is training and Clint always ends up snapping the bowstring somewhere painful, again and again until his entire world narrows down to the angry welts on his forearms.

It is only when Clint walked into Coulson’s office to find Thor sprawled out on the couch that he finally realized he’d been replaced. That couch had been his. Not really, but Coulson had bought it eight years ago, about a week after taking Clint on as an asset. It’s silly to think it was ever his. He didn’t even use it anymore. Clint had managed to mutter some excuse about something or other and went back to his quarters. Who would want Clint as a friend when they could have Thor? Thor was super powerful and interesting and funny, and Thor liked everyone. But Clint really doesn’t understand why such very different people would become such good friends. Thor is loud and abrasive and Coulson is quiet and composed. Thor is absolutely in love with Nicki Minaj and Coulson can’t live without big band jazz. Thor eats Poptarts three times a day, or he would if Jane didn’t stop him, and Coulson limits himself to one treat a day. Unless there are donuts involved, obviously. But Thor is kind and funny without being mean and he listens and is actually really smart, even if Earth customs confuse him.

Clint likes Thor, but seeing him with Coulson makes him want to snarl like a rabid dog, so he starts avoiding them. Coulson may only be his handler, but he _is_ his handler, and Clint has had enough psych sessions and therapy for a lifetime. So it starts with having breakfast at 5 in the morning before anyone else wakes up, so he can be alone. Then he misses a bunch of Thursday team movie nights - but not really, because he’s hiding in the vents above. Natasha says that doesn’t count, but he’s willing to risk disagreeing with her. After a while, he really misses Coulson though, so he takes up hanging out in the vents above Coulson’s rooms, or tailing him at HQ. Coulson asks him a couple times if things are ok, and Clint pulls on his best – _I’m Natasha Romanoff and the queen of super spies work-_ face and tells him everything is perfect, but he knows he’s a terrible liar, and worse, that Coulson knows that he’s a terrible liar. But Coulson doesn’t push, so Clint feels safe. He feels like a dick, but at least he feels safe.

He’s surprised when Coulson asks him if he wants to come over to his private rooms to watch _Dog Cops_ on a Wednesday. He tells himself not to get excited. But then, halfway through the episode, Thor knocks on the main door and Coulson lets him in and hands him a slice of pizza. Clint’s not hurt at all. Thor is loud and asks so many questions that would be adorable otherwise, but _Dog Cops_ with Coulson is supposed to quiet. Thor makes a comment that sets Coulson into a laughing fit and Clint doesn’t understand. He leaves as soon as the episode is over. Next Wednesday, Coulson asks him if he wants to come over again, and Clint declines. Coulson is probably just asking to be polite; it’s obvious that he prefers Thor. That’s fine. Clint is just an asset, after all. And Coulson has real friends now, he doesn’t need to waste his time on Clint.

Clint stops watching _Dog Cops_. It wasn’t that good anyway.

A few weeks later, it is Coulson’s birthday and they’re having a party, and Natasha kisses Phil on the cheek. Thor gets excited and does the same. Everyone starts laughing and Thor stares and asks what’s wrong to no avail, and no one notices Clint slip away. It’s ridiculous. Thor loves his lady Jane more than anything, that much is clear. It was so completely innocent, but his blood is boiling and his fingers are itching so he escapes onto the balcony and climbs down until he’s settled over the curve of the G in the Avengers tower sign. His phone keeps vibrating so he takes it out of his pocket and chucks it over to the middle line of E. He doesn’t miss. Clint closes his eyes and tries to breathe. It takes him two hours to get himself under control, by which point his lips are bleeding from the amount of abuse his teeth are giving them, and that’s when he finally gets it.

Coulson isn’t just his handler.

Clint had gone on a 4 day hiking trip to a tiny village Indonesia to find the coffee beans that Coulson had a particular liking for, just because he’d mentioned a couple weeks ago that he’d run out of the last package of coffee they’d brought back from an op two years ago. It only now occurs to him what that means and what Coulson could think that means, because Coulson is super smart. He thinks of climbing back into the living room and taking the present back, but he doesn’t have anything to replace it with and Coulson’s already seen the present with his name on it, so instead he decides to just not go back.

The icy winter wind is as refreshing as it is cutting and he is reminded that whatever Coulson is to him, Clint is just an asset to the senior agent. Just one of the six superheroes he’s charged with babysitting.

When he wakes up, there’s the bright light of an arc reactor in his face; and he’s covered in a fine dusting of snow and shivering. “Tony, what the fuck!” Clint snaps at the man hovering nearby, face plate open to an expression of annoyance and barely concealed worry.

“Don’t what the fuck me, Merida. Do you have any idea how much I would have to pay if you’d died falling off my fucking tower while asleep? Do you know what Coulson would do to me?”

“Like he’d care. He’d just make you fill out paperwork and then look for replacements.” And, oh, he should not have said that, and now he kind of wants to punch the pity off of Tony’s face. Instead he reaches forward and slams his face plate shut. “Go away, Tony.”

“Nope. It’s bed time for everyone’s favourite Scottish princess, and I will not have you resting on the G. The G belongs to me. You can hang out on the line on the A if you want. In the summer when you can’t get hypothermia, that is.”

“You’re such a dick.”

“Fuck you, I’m a sweetheart. It’s two in the morning and everyone else is in bed. I’m the one who’s trying to make sure you don’t get yourself killed.” And with that, Tony grabs him by the arm and more or less lifts him back up to the balcony.

“Urgh, let go of me.” He pushes Tony away from him and walks into the living room, leaving the billionaire at the hands of JARVIS to remove the suit.

Only to find Coulson sitting on the couch, staring at the package of coffee in his hand. Clint turns around and looks at Tony, feeling utterly betrayed. “Sorry, I lied a bit. Good night.” Tony grins and shoots him a peace sign before walking off to his bedroom.

Clint takes a deep breath, straightens his spine and turns back around, eyes focused on the wet bar behind Coulson. “Hey boss.”

“I’m not really your boss anymore, Barton,” Coulson replies as he looks up, and Clint’s heart stops in his chest. He gets it now. Best eyes on the planet, and he only gets it now, and looking at Coulson hurts. Because Clint isn’t important anymore, probably never was, and that isn’t fucking fair because he’s the one who held in Coulson’s intestines as they were falling out of him in Israel, and he’s the one who got shot in the shoulder shielding him. Thor wasn’t the one Coulson spent Christmas morning in Novosibirsk huddled with against the freezing cold. Thor hadn’t been there when Clint had caught the flu and spent the whole time at Coulson’s house being taken care of. Yet Thor gets to be friends with Coulson and Clint gets to be the one who isn’t even an asset to Coulson anymore.

He’s such an idiot. He should have known this would happen. The first person in a long time to be kind to him and Clint just had to go and develop feelings for him. This was beyond pathetic. Clint swallows. His fingers are twitching again, so he folds them and shoves them under his armpits. But from the corner of his eyes he sees Coulson stand up and walk towards him, package of coffee still in his hand. “This must not have been easy to procure,” he finally says, stopping a foot away from Clint.

“It was all right. I like Indonesia.” Clint continues to stare at the wet bar, even considers getting himself a drink. He could really use one right about now.

“You embarrassed the crap out of me. Natasha is telling the whole world I swooned when I saw the coffee,” Phil says ruefully. “Between the two of us, I did just a bit.”

Clint tries to smile, but he just can’t. He can’t. Because Coulson being kind is going to shatter him right now. It’s too new. Too raw, and he’s sure Coulson knows, because Coulson knows everything about him, and he doesn’t think he can handle a rejection right now. Obviously, there’s going to be a rejection sooner or later, but he’s desperate for it to happen later.

“Barton-” Coulson starts only to stop abruptly. He puts the coffee down gently on the couch behind him, then carefully pries Clint’s hands from under his armpits to gather them into his own. Coulson’s hands are rough and big, whereas Clint’s are long and fine, and they nest just right within those hands. Clint wonders what they would feel like around his waist, or gripping his neck, then chastises himself. It wouldn’t do to have fantasies, they wouldn’t ever come true. Then Coulson take a short breath before saying, “Clint.”

He blinks suddenly out of his reverie and unexpectedly focuses in on Coulson’s face- those eyes of cornflower blue, that twice broken nose. This is too soon. This is too much. He can’t look and not want and it’s not fair. Only now that he’s seen, he can’t bear to look away. It’s not fair. He was there first, and yet he feels like he’s slipping away. He pulls his hands away roughly and turns around, but a hand catches his wrist.

“Clint.” Coulson repeats his name, and his heart starts cartwheeling. “Will you at least tell me why you’re staying away from me? What I did wrong?”

Clint wants to laugh, or cry. He wants to climb into his bed and crawl up in a ball and never wake up. If only he’d remained blissfully unaware. If only he were good enough. “Nothing. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just. I’m a fuck-up, that’s all.”

“Clint, I know you don’t have to tell me anything, you’re not my asset anymore-“

“I know, I know, sir. I’m not your anything anymore.”

 _Aww, Clint, no._ Clint knows he’s said too much. He’s shown his hand and oh fuck this is just incredibly unfair. He’s only just realized like an hour ago, and he can’t even keep his damn mouth shut. God, he’s such a train wreck. Coulson manoeuvres him until he isn’t talking to his back anymore. Clint keeps his eyes lowered, not sure he’ll be able to control himself. He doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing, just stays there enjoying the warmth of Coulson’s fingers wrapped around his wrist and hating himself for not pulling away because this might never happen again. This will hurt more, but Clint is the village, or in this case, tower idiot. It isn’t anything new.

“I would prefer you call me Phil.” Clint looks up in surprise. That’s what Tony and Steve and Bruce call him. What Thor calls him. “After all, that’s what my friends call me.” Couls- Phil tells him with a smile on his face, a gentle, crooked one that Clint has never seen before. Friends. “We _are_ friends, aren’t we?” Phil asks. His tie is a little crooked and Clint automatically raises his free hand to fix it, but now that his hand is on Phil’s chest, he doesn’t want to let go.

It hits him then. You don’t have movie nights with your asset, you don’t take your asset home and nurse him when he’s sick. You don’t wake up in the cold in Siberia with your fingers intertwined with your assets’. They’re friends. He matters to Coulson. But the newly discovered want is still fresh in his chest, it’s got his blood boiling and his toes tingling and he wonders if he can do it. If he can rip out that want and just have a normal friendship with Phil and be happy with that.

Once when Natasha and Clint had been on an op to Canada, he’d fallen into Lake Erie in the middle of winter. His body temperature had gone from being toasty warm in his tactical suit to excruciatingly arctic within seconds. That’s what it feels like now. The bright burst of warmth that had accompanied his recent revelation is slowly being overtaken by a bitter cold that starts at his heart and spreadsuntil it begins to fill him up. He can’t. He’s a selfish asshole but he can’t be friends with this man and not want more. He’d rather stay away than get to touch but not kiss, to have dinners, but not morning-after breakfasts. He doesn’t want that gentle smile to be directed at anyone else and he doesn’t want to share Phil with anyone. And it’s not fair. It’s not fair.

When he blinks back out of his trance, the smile is gone from Phil’s face, replaced with telltale signs of worry. This stare he knows well- the pursed lips, eyebrows drawn together; this is a stare he has frequently seen and caused, so he might as well cause it one more time.

“I don’t want to be friends,” he manages to choke out, forcing his hand to pull away from Phil’s chest. Phil fixes him with another look that Clint is more than acquainted with. This one is calling him out on his bullshit because of course he can’t lie to Phil. Phil hasn’t said anything, but he also hasn’t let go of his hand, so he wants a better explanation. Clint can’t think of any better explanation because his brain refuses to work with him. So he does the only thing he can. “I don’t want to be friends,” he whispers, looking down at his worn out Converses. “I want more.”

And Phil softens. His entire body relaxes, and pulls Clint towards him with a sure hand around his wrist. Clint reaches around Phil with his free hand to gain some balance, and ends up coming chest to chest with the other man, nosing bumping. “Me neither,” Phil whispers, millimetres away from his own lips.

And then that all-consuming inferno in him returns with a vengeance and battles the cold away as Phil turns his head and brings soft but slightly chapped lips against his own. He winces internally, remembering the destruction he’d caused his own lips only hours ago. Phil doesn’t seem to mind though, and his own free hand takes hold of Clint by the neck, thumb pressing into the skin behind his ear. The hand around his wrist loosens and intertwines Clint’s fingers with his own.

They don’t break apart as much as stop and breath into each other, noses bumping and foreheads pressed together. Clint thinks he might be going into shock, because Clint gets to have this, and no one else does. Clint moves until he’s pressing his lips into the hollow of Phil’s throat through the shirt and tie. He can hear the beat of his own heart beating in time with Phil’s. This heartbeat is his, and he isn’t going to hide anymore.

It’s a late Saturday morning and Clint walks into the communal kitchen to find Thor making pancakes. Steve is seated at the head of the table, reading the morning newspaper (yes, actual print news). Bruce is on coffee duty, not that it’s of any help because he’s taken to writing equations on a coffee filter using the marker from their Kaper chart. Natasha is near the fridge pouring herself a glass of orange juice. She shuts the refrigerator door using her hip and then turns towards him, walking up to give him a good morning kiss on the cheek before settling into a stool on the breakfast bar behind Thor.

Steve looks up and smiles at him. “Morning, Clint.”

“Hey Cap,” Clint says and looks around the kitchen again, unsure of what to do. He’s never made it to Saturday morning breakfasts before.

“Friend Clint! What a lovely surprise! Sit! And I shall serve you the best of pancakes this world has to offer!” Thor booms, face splitting into a wide grin. He looks at the dining table and the breakfast bar warily, not sure where to sit. Before he can take another step, he senses a familiar presence behind him right before a hand comes to rest on his lower back.

“Morning,” Phil quietly says from behind. Clint lets himself be led to the dining table and obeys as Phil tells him to sit right next to Steve. The others greet Phil, except for Bruce, who’s completely forgotten about the coffee let alone the presence of others, instead taking to sitting on the ground writing on the third piece of coffee filter. Phil walks up to Bruce, crouches down and slowly tugs the marker from his hand, replacing it with the StarkPad that he’d grabbed from the dining table.

“Oh- sorry! Good morning, Phil.” Bruce looks up completely embarrassed and Clint sees Steve trying to hide an amused smile behind his newspaper.

“Morning. How about you let me take over coffee duty today, and you can work on that on the table?” Phil suggests as he stands back up and offers Bruce a hand.

Bruce smiles sheepishly, accepting the hand up and settling at the table to the other side of Steve. “Oh, hey Clint. Nice to see you,” Bruce says before ducking his head and focusing on whatever world-changing idea he’s having. Clint nods his head and takes to staring at Phil, wondering maybe if this was a bad idea.

Steve puts his newspaper down and turns towards Clint. “Could you help me with the crossword, Clint?”

“I’m shit at spelling though.”

“That’s fine. I don’t understand half the references here,” Steve replies. So Clint nods and Steve takes out the pen from his breast pocket. They finally solve for ’Like Simba but not Nala‘ with ’Maned’ when Tony stumbles into the kitchen, still clad in yesterday’s clothes and covered in motor oil. And from the determined and slightly crazed look in his eyes, clearly on the hunt for coffee. He reaches Phil just as he turns with two cups of coffee in his hands, making all sorts of grabby motions with his hands.

“Stop it, Tony. This is not for you. Out of the kitchen now. Shower first, breakfast later.” Phil orders.

“This is my house, you know.”

“Now.” Tony leaves, mumbling something about the fall of democracy. Phil ambles back to Clint, sitting down to his left while placing a piping hot cup of coffee in front of him. Clint nods his thanks and takes the mug with both his hands. He takes a drink, and it’s perfect. A dollop of milk and some maple syrup, just the way Clint likes it. He puts the mug down and sneaks his left hand under the table to place it on Phil’s knee, where Phil’s hand quickly joins his. Their eyes meet for just a moment before turning to the newspaper on the table.

Steve asks, “Coffee berries ingested by the Asian palm civet?”

“Kopi Luwak,” Phil answers before threading their fingers together under the table.

Clint relaxes. For the first time, he feels like he’s home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> I'm soniclipstick on tumblr so you're more than welcome to come hang out with me:D


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